Mathers stepped past Atkins to the wall Chandar had been examining.
Atkins gripped the officer’s upper arm. “Why should we trust you, sir?”
Mathers looked down at Atkins’ hand, his contemptuous look lost behind his splash mask. His voice was cold and measured. “Let go, Lance Corporal. Or I’ll have you for striking an officer.”
Atkins held his grip long enough for it to border on insubordination and for the pair of them to know it. “How do we know you can do what you say?”
Beneath his mask, Mathers smiled. “Lily of the Valley,” he whispered.
Atkins frowned. “What?”
“That was your sweetheart’s perfume, wasn’t it? On the letter? Lily of the Valley. How else could I know?” He let that sink in for a moment. “Do you trust me now, Corporal?”
Dumbfounded, Atkins released his arm.
“Hm,” Mathers added with a satisfied grunt, tugging his tunic sleeve straight as he stepped past Atkins.
He looked at Chandar, the chatt’s visage as blank as his own masked features. “You say there are scents here? That’s the way you things communicate, isn’t it?”
“It is so,” said Chandar, watching him carefully, “but urmen cannot read them.”
Mathers paused, fished out his hip flask, took a slug, and emptied it. Damn. He upended it and shook the last drops from the rim, through the chainmail into his mouth, then proceeded to do what the chatt thought impossible.
He turned his attention to the wall. He could see the glyphs and the blank, unfilled space. He stood before it and concentrated. He inhaled, slowly and deeply. As he did, faint colours began to permeate the surface of the vacant space, like an after image. There was something here; a scent message impregnated into the wall. With each purposeful breath, the colours grew stronger, and began to take on form in the space between him and the wall, hovering before his eyes, taking a shape he had come to recognise, a base note, on which the whole composition was built, pungent and overwhelming, one of the first words he had learnt in his synesthetic vocabulary.
“Fear,” croaked Mathers. “Something is coming.” He reeled back as the next aromatic note almost overwhelmed him. “Here!” he gasped. Another stringent note subsumed and washed this one away; a lingering top note that persisted after the others had faded. “Fear. Flee.”
“What the hell is that, some kind of warning?” asked Atkins.
Chandar stepped forwards, its mandibles ticking together as it forced the urman words out through its mouth palps. “No, you misunderstand. It is merely history, a few scraps of scent from the past.” It turned to Mathers, its clawed middle limbs open, its antennae stumps jerking. “How is this possible? Urmen are scent-blind. How is it that you can decipher the chemical commentaries of the Ones? This is unforeseen, this is beyond wonder.”
Mathers threw his arms wide. “It is a gift from Skarra, the gift of tongues.”
Chandar let out a long low hiss, but its eyes fell on the empty hip flask in Mathers’ hand and it fell silent, lost in thought.
Mathers felt the overwhelming scent of fear from the message rousing him to panic. He felt the urge to flee, and might well have done had not a spasm in his stomach sent him doubling over as ripples of pain washed though him. He rode each agonising wave until they subsided and, with them, the feeling of fear.
“Something, I don’t know what, was coming. It arrived. They fled,” he said, still panting though the pain.
“That’s it?” said Atkins, unimpressed.
Mathers stood, steadying himself against the wall as he pulled himself to his full height. “Can you do better, Corporal?”
“No sir. But we already know about the dulgur.”
“If that is what they were talking about, Corporal.”
A SHOT ECHOED around the chamber. It came from the concourse. “Gutsy, Mercy, stay here. Keep an eye on that lot.”
Atkins ran to the opening and peered round, ready for anything. Anything but what he found.
He was greeted by Pot Shot with an anguished looked on his face. “It’s Prof.”
Prof? Atkins couldn’t see with the others gathered around but, as he approached, they parted. Between them he could see a large pile of rubble, and protruding from behind it he could make out a bare right foot. That was all he needed to see.
“Oh, Prof.” Atkins groaned. “You stupid sod.”
Prof lay slumped against a pile of debris. He had discarded his puttee, boot and sock to one side, his bayonet to the other. The top half of his skull had been blown away and his brains splattered over the rubble behind him. His rifle lay along his chest. Nellie knelt by him, but there was nothing she could do.
“He was sobbing quietly for a while. I thought it best to leave him, then I heard him say ‘sorry,’” said Pot Shot. “I never thought—”
Suicide. Not always easy for a soldier. Some just stuck their heads above the parapet and waited for a German sniper. Others, well. The barrel of the Enfield was too long. You couldn’t just stick the muzzle in your mouth and use your finger to pull the trigger. You had to take your boot and sock off, then use your big toe instead.
For some of the Tommies, the only thing that kept them going was the fact that they might find a way home. There had been a flurry of suicides when they’d first arrived, and every so often they found another poor bugger who’d found he couldn’t take it anymore, in a trench or a dugout. With the discovery of the Bleeker Party came the realisation that that there was no way home, that they were stranded on this hell world. It was just too much.
“You know the routine, Porgy,” said Atkins quietly. “Paybook and disc. Redistribute his bombs, rations and ammunition.”
Nellie shook her head slowly in disbelief. “Why would he do that?”
Gutsy put a big fatherly arm round her and steered her away from the sight. “He’d just had enough, love. He hasn’t been quite the same since Nobby died. I think perhaps finding them emigrants was the last straw. It takes something like that, when you’re a long way from home.”
Although there was no love lost between them, the tank crew hung back, and gave 1 Section the space to briefly mourn their dead comrade.
It was then Nellie caught sight of Alfie. Her mouth formed a silent ‘o’ of shock when she saw his eyes, but he shook his head to dissuade her from any action. She relented, reluctantly, and only for the moment.
They piled blocks of rubble and debris over the body, burying Prof where he lay. Chalky muttered a hurried prayer before they moved on.
Atkins was angry now. If it hadn’t been for Mathers and his blasted quest, Prof might still be alive. But he had his orders. If they were going to get Mathers and the tank back, they had to kill this blasted creature. Atkins turned to the masked Tank Commander. “Right, let’s get this done. Which way, Lieutenant?”
Mathers paused for a moment, considering the options, then pointed to one of the passages leading off the concourse. “That way.”
ATKINS AND 1 Section fell in behind him. Mathers nodded, and the tank crew brought up the rear as they began to descend into the edifice’s subterranean levels.
Nellie fell back, snatching a chance to talk to Alfie.
“What have they done to you?” she hissed angrily.
“Not here,” he begged her. In the dark, his fingers found hers. He squeezed her hand to placate her. “It’s all right, it will pass.”
She glanced at him with suspicion.
“It’ll pass,” he reassured her.
Frank gave Alfie a shove from behind. “No fraternising with the enemy.”
He let go of her hand, taking comfort in her soft golden glow, as she returned to Napoo’s side. She glanced back, searching for reassurance. He offered a smile for her sake.